Leaker Snowden alleges NSA hacking on China, world

A supporter holds a picture of Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee who leaked top-secret information about U.S. surveillance programs, outside the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong Thursday, June 13, 2013. The news of Snowden's whereabouts, revealed by an editor of a local newspaper that interviewed him Wednesday, is the first since he went to ground Monday after checking out of his hotel in this autonomous Chinese territory.

Kin Cheung, Associated Press

Summary

For months, China has tried to turn the tables on the U.S. to counter accusations that it hacks America's computers and networks. Now, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden may have handed Beijing a weapon in its cyber war of words with Washington.

HONG KONG — For months, China has tried to turn the tables on the U.S. to counter accusations that it hacks America's computers and networks. Now, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden may have handed Beijing a weapon in its cyber war of words with Washington.

In an interview with the South China Morning Post newspaper, Snowden claims the U.S. has long been attacking a Hong Kong university that routes all Internet traffic in and out of the semiautonomous Chinese region.

Snowden said the National Security Agency's 61,000 hacking targets around the world include hundreds in Hong Kong and mainland China, the paper reported late Wednesday. The Post, Hong Kong's main English-language newspaper, said Snowden had presented documents to support those claims, but it did not describe the documents and said it could not verify them.

Snowden's comments were his first since the 29-year-old American revealed himself as the source of a major leak of top-secret information on U.S. surveillance programs. He flew to Hong Kong from Hawaii before revealing himself, and the Post said he is staying out of sight amid speculation the U.S. may seek his extradition.

Snowden, who worked for the CIA and later as a contractor for the NSA, has revealed details about U.S. spy programs that sweep up millions of Americans' telephone records, emails and Internet data in the hunt for terrorists. American law enforcement officials are building a case against him but have yet to bring charges.

U.S. officials have disputed some of his claims, particularly his assertion to The Guardian newspaper of Britain that he "had the authority to wiretap anyone." He also said he made $200,000 a year, although contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, where he worked before being fired this week, said his salary was $122,000.

Snowden's allegations about U.S. hacking add a new twist to the long-running battle between Washington and Beijing over cybersecurity.

The U.S. been delivering a steady flow of reports accusing China's government and military of computer-based attacks against America. U.S. officials have said recently that the Chinese seem more open to trying to work with the U.S. to address the problems.

Snowden's allegations follow comments last week from China's Internet security chief, who told state media that Beijing has amassed huge amounts of data on U.S.-based hacking. The official held off on blaming the U.S. government, saying it would be irresponsible and that the better approach is to seek to cooperate in the fight against cyberattacks.

On Thursday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chungying said China is a "major victim" of cyberattacks but did not lay blame.

The reaction was stronger online. Air Force Col. Dai Xu, known for the hawkish opinions he voices on his Sina Weibo microblog, wrote: "I have always said, the United States' accusations about Chinese hacking attacks have always been a case of a thief crying for another thief to be caught."

The Post cited Snowden as saying the NSA has been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and mainland China since 2009, citing documents he showed the paper, which it said it could not verify. It didn't provide further details about the documents.

He said that among the targets was the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which hosts the Hong Kong Internet Exchange, the main hub for the city's Internet traffic. Set up in 1995, it allows all data between local servers to be routed locally instead of having to pass through exchanges in other countries, including the United States.

"We hack network backbones — like huge Internet routers, basically — that gives us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one," Snowden told the Post.

Popular Comments

Well, DUH! That is the mandate of the NSA. They are supposed to be spying on
everyone else. What we are upset about is that they are spying on us, too,
which is outside of their charter. Not that we are really surprised; we always
expected it.
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10:36 a.m. June 13, 2013

Top comment

Tators

Hyrum, UT

After the way Snowden is going out of his way to do damage to his own country...
our country... a country that has undoubtedly given him so much, it's
almost unbelievable that anyone with any common sense (other than our enemies)
could possibly
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1:35 p.m. June 14, 2013

Top comment

happy2bhere

clearfield, UT

I agree with Z and I hope they keep spying on every country out there, espcially
the ones that may be an economic or military enemy. The thing we can't
have is spying on Americans communications and being able to use that info for
some illegal
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